The Day After
by Carmen Wayne
Summary: The day after--the night--slash day of RE2. What happened to Claire immediately afterwards? She got pulled into another mess, that's what. (Now has a shiney prologue, whee.)
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
The signature read "Claire Redfield". Robert Kesling handed the thin girl her credit card she used with a bandaged hand. He looked her over for at least the seventh time—the girl looked like she had been through hell. Why she was at his little motel versus, maybe, a hospital, was beyond him.  
"What happened?" she asked after tucking the card away. She gestured to his hand. "If you don't mind my asking, that is."  
Robert gave a faint chuckle and rubbed the bandage. After swallowing a few times—his throat was so dry for some reason—he spoke in a slightly weakened voice.  
"My cat went psycho today. She'd been missing for a day, came back scratching and acting crazy. Bit my wife and then me an hour later. We had to get those stupid rabies shots." He shook his head, and began mindlessly scratching his arm. It—in fact his entire body had been itching so bad for the last hour. Damn allergies. Once more, he looked her over. "Where'd you say you came from again?"  
"Just got out of Raccoon," she breathed.  
Robert blinked at that. That place was completely quarantined...  
"I heard it's BAD there..."  
Redfield grinned weakly, but he could just tell she had seen more than her fair share.  
"You have no idea..." And then she gave the biggest (fakest) smile she could, and she jiggled the key to the motel room she just rented from him. "Thanks."  
Redfield turned and slowly walked away, walking like she just fell off a horse... or a five-story building. Robert smirked a bit though, she seemed like a good girl.  
A wince came to his face. He looked at his arm where he had been scratching, and was horrified to see that he somehow scratched clean through his skin. It looked like someone scratched out lines in a chunk of clay—why was that? Blood was thick the minute it hit the surface, coagulating almost immediately. It was that damn cat...  
Robert's eyes rolled a little when a fever began to hit him. He felt like he was sweating, but looking over at a mirror his wife had hung up last weak, he could see his skin was chalky, dry... yellow too. And for some reason, the more his throat hurt, the hungrier he got... and he was starving.  
He rose to his feet slowly. His position was awkward; it felt like his spine was trying to turn to putty. After a moment of energy recuperation, he staggered back for the area his wife and he lived. She was resting in bed, she was so ill earlier she couldn't walk. Robert wondered if it was rabies at all...  
To his numb surprise, his wife was sitting there, on the bed, staring at something, but nothing he could see. She seemed in a trance, and like she wasn't breathing much at all.  
"Honey—are you feeling better--?" he asked, words hard to say...  
"No," she said. Her voice was hoarser than his. "No..." she repeated...  
"What's wrong...?"  
His beloved wife scratched a cheek. Shreds of skin fell from her face, from under her nails, almost like snow. After a moment of just scratching layer by layer away, she stood, a faint moan emitting from her pale lips. Head slumped like she couldn't lift it, she rolled her eyes to look to his, needing and wanting... something...  
"Hungry... feed... me...?" 


	2. Chapter 1

Author's Note: 'tis my first RE fanfic, go me!  
Okay, so, forgive any mistakes I make between the game continuities and so on and so forth and yadda... I know them but I write before I think and it looks so good I don't change it and... *shrug* Just don't hurt me!  
  
Rating: For right now, PG-13  
  
Continuity: The day after... the, er, night in Raccoon City in RE2.  
  
The Day After... By: Carmen Kara Wayne  
  
Chapter One  
  
Claire was horror stricken at the mutated Licker that had busted into the shabby motel room that she had rented just four hours ago, after escaping the horror of Raccoon City. And just after parting ways with her new friends Leon S. Kennedy and Sherry Birkin. What a grand time for her to decide to go it alone.  
She had fled the room, fled the complex—why did everything seem so desolate? Four hours ago, when she got into the small town a few miles away from Raccoon, forest side, there were people bustling about. Not even the wind was moving at this point. All she could hear was the distancing shriek of the Licker... and her own panting, gasping, feet pounding, grinding gravel into pavement by worn boots, her legs slapping and rubbing against one another when she would turn corners, and her heart pounding in her ears...  
Go it alone indeed. Her ammo was dry, she was utterly exhausted from her night in Raccoon City—LAST night—she hadn't showered, and she could have sworn she broke a couple of ribs when she lunged out of the gaping hole that was once a window before the Licker burst through.  
She gave herself credit though. It was a damn nifty move she used to get out of the room. The Licker had crashed through the window—how it found her, she didn't know—and though she freaked out, she was able to process what to do in her mind within a split second. She charged the Licker, stepped to the side to avoid that tongue, and actually shoulder rolled across it's back, praying it's tongue wouldn't catch her, and pushed into a spring, and went out the window. She pivoted during the sail out the window, and fired her last bullet into the Licker's mouth, gaining a terrible view of its mutation in daylight. And then she remembered there wasn't a pathway or balcony under that window and plummeted two stories into a trash dumpster.  
But she couldn't focus on that at this point. Why was that thing after her? Maybe she was the only "food" left for it. And what had happened to it? That hideous, wide mouth now encompassed nearly all of the Licker's head. The exposed brain on its original form was creepy enough, but the upper jaw had grown up and over the lobes to protect them, it seemed. And she could have sworn she saw it unhinge them like a snake would when she fired that bullet as she fell—  
Where WERE all the people? She had fallen asleep immediately when she entered the motel room about three and a half hours ago. Could something have hit so fast? Or maybe she didn't hear the call for a city evac.? Or maybe Umbrella—  
--no. Not going to think crazy, Claire, what use are you to them? None. Time to get out of here alive and—oh God, is this town fake?  
Flights of fancy? Chris always made fun of her for making up the weirdest scenarios in situations and jumping to the most outlandish conclusions about things. It was at this point that she missed him, and Leon. She wasn't one to want to be thought of as needy and weak, but she also wasn't one to deny having a guy around made her feel safe. They were stronger, faster—built moreso for combat. Well, she trusted a few men that way. Chris, and now Leon. She couldn't believe she'd trust someone with her life other than her brother, but Leon certainly proved himself. He saved her life at that diner. After that, he helped her from the zombies in the alley—beyond the alley—all the way to the end, he helped her, and Sherry, out of Raccoon...  
Part of her felt so very guilty for leaving them that morning...  
A flash of pain struck her right knee when she rounded a corner into an alley, and her body jolted forward. Before she realized what was happening, she had face-planted into concrete.  
"Nnnnugh—AAGH—"  
She was choking then, as something straight and hard pressed into her neck and tugged her back into an arch, making her head press against a heaving chest. She choked harder, the feeling of needing to puke and needing to breathe one in the same. But Lord she hoped she wasn't leaking spit. Claire knew sometimes that happened when being choked and it was gross as hell. Of course, survival was a priority too. ("Make sure to leave a pretty corpse," came to mind. Captain Albert Wesker, the creepy bastard, told her that.)  
"I knew it! Knew the fuckers would get out of RC!" a crude male voice screamed at her.  
Claire tried to look up at the man's face, but her eyes were flooding with tears, and her vision was turning random shades, darkening towards inevitable black.  
"Mmmnah—"  
"That damned Raccoon—brought you assholes here, and—ah? Breathing?" He leaned over, his face completely black in her darkening eyes. He studied the blood that was starting to seep into the whites of each orb. "You're human?"  
He dropped what was pressing against her throat and it clamored—metallic sounding, like a pipe—to the ground. Claire rested her head on the pavement, vision whirring back, throat making her cough as it tried to regain shape.  
"Broke—my knee—I—th-think—"she coughed, voice hoarse.  
"Oh, I've done WORSE. And to girls FAR cuter than you. You 'n' I are the only humans left. That's the ONLY reason you're not gonna get that proven."  
He stood up and grabbed her, hefting Claire to her feet. Claire stumbled around before finding good footing on her left foot.  
Claire turned to look at the man, rubbing her throat. He was an absolute mess. His face was covered in stubble, his eyes were small and dark. Graying black hair, long and scraggly, was heavy with grease on his head. He had profane words tattooed to his knuckles and arms, and his clothes were filthy and tattered like a homeless man's.  
He was SO not a Leon S. Kennedy. In fact, he reminded her of a time she was taking a midnight jog and a man attacked her in the park. Tackled her to the ground and went for her shirt, but had no idea her big brother wasn't too far behind (he was visiting and they always loved to do midnight jogs) and soon he had a S.T.A.R.S. standard issue 9MM Beretta in his face and words were in his ears informing him he was under arrest by the authority of Officer Redfield from the RPD S.T.A.R.S.  
But, this time, she didn't HAVE Chris with her. It was just HER, the LICKER, and the CREEPY man in front of her.  
"And how old are you, cutie?" he asked, attempting to be charming but just sickening her instead.  
"Excuse me—WHAT?" Claire asked, dumbfounded that THAT was his first question of all the things he could have asked her. Jill Valentine told her once what to do in a situation like this during her last visit to Raccoon. "Twenty-two."  
Never give your real age, never say you're twenty-one or eighteen, and never say you're under eighteen.  
The man scoffed.  
"Too old for me. What's your name?"  
What the hell?! she yelled in her mind. Rule two: Never give your real name.  
"Angel."  
"Like the vampire?"  
"Er... sure."  
She was thinking in lieu of her vest—the vest she gave to Sherry—but that worked too. Why argue?  
"Hell yeah."  
He brushed past her, making her wince, and then slapped her on the butt, which made her yelp out in surprise, and made her jerk in ways that made her hurt worse.  
"Hey!!"  
"C'mon, sugar-baby. Help daddy find us some guns."  
Claire went to say something, but then stopped and grinned. Why hadn't she remembered it? She landed on it when he knocked her down.  
"I'm already packing, buddy," she snapped.  
As she hobbled after him, she pulled the police-issue glock from the front of her shorts waist band. She snapped the safety off and clicked the clip out and in as if checking it. And she did it so the noise would (hopefully) catch his attention. It worked. When the man heard that, he froze... and slowly pivoted on his heel to look at her.  
"Are you now?" he asked, not happy with this turn events clearly.  
"Yeah, so I suggest you don't try anything, or I'll blast your brains out EVERYWHERE." Her voice was shaking as she realized this could very well be a sexual assailant and maybe even a murderer she was in company with. "What HAPPENED here?"  
She clasped the gun in both hands to keep it steady. Claire prayed that she looked convincing enough for the lie about having anything other than an empty clip loaded into the gun to work. The man gave a rotten- toothed grin.  
"Works for me." He began to pace around her casually. Claire followed him in place, keeping the sight of the gun trained on his head. "Yesterday, seven freaks hobbled out of the forest from 'coon's direction. I was... ah... playing nice with a honey... when I heard screaming. The freaks were attacking my... honey's family. Biting them, clawing them, eating them—sick shit like that. Most of 'em survived when the police arrived. The seven got shot down, and they rushed the camp people out. Heard later on on the news that the vics were going psycho-shit, biting hospital staff, moanin' and groanin'. The exact same shit those RPD S.T.A.R.S. had been talkin' about what happened to them, and then what happened to the 'coon people. More attacks followed, more zombies, and now THIS. A freakin' ghost town. With zombies instead'a ghosts."  
He grinned madly while Claire's heart sank more and more. She hadn't even washed away the gross slime on her from Raccoon City before getting hurled into another nightmare.  
"I was just in Raccoon. I know well enough we can't stay in one spot. Any place we can go?"  
"Where else? The PD of this place," he said with that same wild grin as before. "Follow me, Angel-baby."  
Claire gave a distressed sigh and complied to him. After all, what else could she do? 


	3. Chapter 2

Author's Note: It keeps going and going...  
  
Rating: For right now, PG-13  
  
Continuity: The day after... the, er, night in Raccoon City in RE2.  
  
The Day After... By: Carmen Kara Wayne  
  
Chapter Two  
  
The police station was a far cry from the temple that was the RPD, but it was by no means small, especially for the size of town it was. The building was three levels above ground, and two under, Claire noted, by the directory they passed as they entered. The halls were stale white. Eerily quiet and stale. Every so often, the white was broken with the darkness of drying, and fresh, blood. Off ten feet to their left was an arm, shreds of skin and muscle hinting that it had been torn from its owner. Claire shuddered hard, thinking of the previous night in Raccoon.  
Oh, this is just dandy. I'm coming down with post-traumatic stress disorder. See a arm laying in a hall, think of zombies. Wonderful.  
"Yo, Angel-baby, lets move, huh?"  
The man gestured unenthusiastically down the hall that branched to their right. Claire focused herself and stared down the hallway. One side was amassed with windows to a courtyard that had been walled off to them on the outside (so she assumed), the other was lined with doors, and at the very end, one metal-door elevator. Claire suddenly felt very ill with dread.  
"Where are we going down there?" she asked, trying to sound more curious than afraid.  
"They have a tiiiiiny little armory down by the elevator, baby."  
He started that way, a little bounce in his step. Claire frowned, but followed him anyway. Thankfully, her limp was beginning to lessen. He hadn't broken her knee after all.  
"Hey," Claire said, beginning to remember something. She kept her gun in both hands as she spoke and followed him. "What's your name anyway?"  
"Demon," he said, a scratchy chuckle emitting from his throat.  
"Demon?" Claire asked, voice dripping with doubt. "What's your REAL name?"  
"They call me Demon, baby. Don't ask for anymore than that, or else I'll hafta prove why."  
Whoa boy, this guy is getting creepier by the second...  
Claire was silent as she followed him down the hall after that. Approaching the first door, she saw it was completely shut, and felt a bit better. The zombies couldn't open doors. But looking out the wall of windows, her consolation withered. What was once a courtyard was now a graveyard for undead bodies. They were pacing in the shadows the trees provided in the afternoon sun. What was worse? she wondered. The zombies out there or the psychopath in front of her?  
One of the zombies had caught sight of them, and was already slamming his head into the glass by the time they reached the last panel of glass on the wall. Claire watched it as she walked by—she couldn't help it—studying it's torn features. She could see its white jawbone, she could see it cracked from being gnawed on. Each time it's head hit the glass with a deaf thump, it's forehead seemed to mush in further and further, brownish streaks of greasy fluid slipping down its face and the glass.  
She really wished Leon or Chris were with her.  
A large crash startled her out of her trance so bad, she forgot her gun had no bullets and almost pressed the trigger in that direction, but was glad she didn't as soon as she saw what it was. Demon had just kicked his way through a heavily locked door. Heavily. Locked. She saw the deadbolts that had been fastened flying in bits across the tile within the room behind the door.  
He's either incredibly strong, or so insane he can't feel pain...  
She crossed past the door as he went inside, her staying outside just in case, to catch sight of him messing with a rifle laying on a table that was a complete disaster area. Gun lockers and cages were hanging wide open. No doubt the panic of zombies and Lickers overrode the need to lock those things up. Claire entered slowly and immediately went for clips she knew would fit her gun. Without hesitation, she grabbed one as she popped the empty from her gun and let it hit the floor and slapped the fresh—and full—one into place. Demon grinned slyly.  
"Thought you said you were packin', Angel."  
Claire gave him a weak, sarcastic grin back.  
"I lied." She aimed the gun at him with one hand. "But don't think my threat changes any, dude. You try to come within arms' reach of me, I put one in your forehead."  
He was watching her. Her voice was shaky, but her eyes were intent. She wasn't lying at all. Demon turned and went to grab a box of rifle bullets from one of the open lockers. A raspy chuckle emitted from his throat.  
"You're a smart girl, ain'tcha? Smart indeed. You take bullshit from NO one."  
"Especially so from men who allude to being murderers and rapists," Claire snapped, feeling more awake than before from the reality hitting her about the situation..  
It was just like Chief Irons, when he had her at gunpoint in his taxidermy chamber under the RPD. He had PLANS to do horrible, horrible things to her. He told her he did, even though he never gave details. Rape her, maybe? Inflict terrible pain for hours and then dear, surely. It was maddening, the kind of people out there. Especially someone like Irons, Chief of the Raccoon City Police. Murderer, torturer, possible rapist—she was never a victim before and she didn't intend to ever be one. She'd rip someone's heart out with her bare hands if she had to, especially now, after all she had been through.  
Demon looked at her, startled. But it looked too staged to be real.  
"Murderer! Murderer?! I am not a murderer OR a rapist." He suddenly shot her one of those rotten-toothed grins again. "I prefer... 'Drafter of the Other Side' and 'Personal Pleasure Seeker'..."  
Claire twitched and then found herself speaking before she knew what she wanted to say:  
"Then kill yourself and masterba—"  
A shriek. Claire knew it all too well. Adrenaline hit her veins in a split second. The mutated Licker. Her knee suddenly felt perfectly fine from the violent hormonal response and she kicked the door shut and shoved the barrel of the gun to his face.  
"NOT playing with you!" she yelled, grabbing for the rifle he held.  
Demon grinned, as if it were a game, and twisted the rifle so the butt slammed into her gut. Claire gasped involuntarily from that and pulled the trigger of her gun, but he had managed to knock her hand to the side so the bullet crashed into the door. In response—and in reflex—she swung her foot between his legs and nailed him dead center. Demon cried out a bit and went to hit her with the rifle once more. Claire stumbled backwards to avoid the hit, her hand still catching part of the swing. She pointed at him again, when the door, just a few feet from her, bent in the middle like something hard slammed into it. A sharp, startled cry escaped her mouth and she staggered away, tripping and hitting the floor hard.  
Demon looked around and saw that the ceiling was paneled, and was soon up on the center table and removing a panel to slide up out of sight. His feet were disappearing into the upper darkness just she bad a god 18 rounds as the Licker slammed completely through.  
That bastard--!  
Claire opened fire, squeezing the trigger over and over as the Licker went for her. Something went right, she figured, when the Licker began to flail like mad. Claire grabbed three more clips before leaping to her feet and making a hopefully not too futile attempt to get past it. She felt something slap her back lightly as she sprinted past it—no doubt it's tongue—and darted out of the room, for a service elevator to the right of the door—the normal elevator to its left.  
It was soon, too soon, after she was out of the room that she heard the table clatter around in the armory room, another shriek, and the rapid click of claws scrambling across tile, out of the room, and after its dinner.  
As she came to the service elevator, she rose her foot and kicked the buttons, not caring if she hit "down" or "up", before pushing around by use of the wall and firing on the Licker more. She heard the elevator making it's way to her, and heard the doors opening as she fired. Originally, she was going to get in, but it was too risky.  
Ten feet—seven—five—three—at about two feet, Claire dove to the side and the Licker attempted to stop, but slid across the tile, straight into the elevator, and crashed to the back of it. And hard enough for her to feel the vibrations where she had landed. Slowly, the doors began to shut and she begged in silent prayer it wouldn't get out before the metal doors shut completely. She cried out when that tongue snapped out—but then the doors crashed shut, perhaps due to a mechanical error, and she heard the Licker squeal within. Why, Claire hadn't a clue, until the elevator began to descend and soon all that was left was a piece of tongue laying on the white tile, sliced off by door.  
Claire tried to force herself to breathe normally, but she knew she couldn't. Demon was out there, as were a whole town population of zombies, and a Licker that would probably be getting loose somewhere in the basement within a few seconds. Body aching, she pulled to her feet and shakily ran back to the armory room to fully load up on clips... and that's when, somehow, the glass wall to the zombie-filled courtyard shattered straight down the hall, leaving nothing between her and them. 


	4. Chapter 3

Author's Note: It's short and sweet to hold out for his next solo scene.  
  
Rating: For right now, PG-13... approaching R...  
  
Continuity: The day after... the, er, night in Raccoon City in RE2.  
  
The Day After... By: Carmen Kara Wayne  
  
Chapter Three  
  
She was lickable, Demon concluded as he shuffled through the crawlspace he'd used once before to escape the jail. He could hear her gunfire hitting it's target, and also missing it and ricocheting bullets off metal lockers and walls. Demon figured if Angel lived, he'd "play" with her like he played with all of his honeys. Oh, she may be just like them—that hair, those eyes—but there was something that trapped him to her. The others would scream, cry, and occasionally struggle and scratch... but she thrust a gun in his face and actually physically fought with him. She was playing hard to get and he loved it. But she kicked him in the nuts, the bitch... the tantalizing bitch...  
He didn't like the zombie thing. Such a nuisance. But on the other hand, they brought him Angel. Demon and Angel. He loved that.  
When Demon ended up at a hole in the crawlspace, he grinned because it dropped out onto a stone catwalk that encircled the entire courtyard. He dropped down and jogged around for the door he knew was on the other side, when he stopped. Through the glass wall he and Angel had been past, he watched as the tongue-thing crashed inside a facilities elevator and the doors snapped shut. And there Angel was, not even scratched! The nerve, she had to earn Demon's special treatment.  
So, Demon did what Demon always did best and fired three shots across the glass wall with his rifle, completely crashing the entire wall. The zombies, who had been beating at the glass for Angel's meat groaned almost in unison and what Demon assumed glee of sorts and reached for her. They went for her, and they were fast. At least the ones not as torn up from being chomped on in the feeding frenzy prior. There was a twitch of excitement and Demon's yearning to watch her fight her way out of it, but he knew there was something first he had to handle.  
SHE had one of her assistants in the station when he was escaping. A little wench named... Janny. Not Jenny, but Janny, he remembered, because he made fun of her for it. And she had the right hair too. Plus, he promised he'd have her before the night was through...  
And Janny ain't dead. All those Umbrella fucks are crazy and invincible or something.  
Demon had crossed the catwalk and entered through the door, into another bright hallway. In this one, bits and pieces of human laid scattered about, along with one huge skid mark of red clear from under a door at one end, by a flight of descending stairs, all the way around the corner on the other end.  
And then, the humming. A childish lullaby from the throat of a woman. Janny had been humming that during his interrogation. There was the clatter of automatic gunfire, drowning out the humming completely, and then it stopped and he heard a wet "slop" hit the white tile. It was just around the corner that the large red mark led. And then the humming continued, confirming his thoughts.  
Crazy bitch. No wonder Elana liked 'er. And she just made this a lot fuckin' easier.  
And with that, Demon began to whistle the lullaby himself as he reeled around the corner and fired one bullet straight into her stomach while she wasn't prepared. Janny choked out and staggered back, the automatic crashing to the ground. Soon, she fell over and Demon chuckled darkly as he swept over her, a foot on each side of her, and looking down at her through dirty locks of hair. Next to them was the thing that had "slopped" to the ground. A pile of zombie, broken and mushy from her automatic fire, on the ground in a puddle like an ice cream scoop flopped to the floor. Demon could see it was no longer fun for Janny. Her eyes were now wide with shock and fear. That just made him so much more excited about what was coming.  
"Hiya, Janny." A snicker fell out of his mouth as he backed up, reached down and grabbed her feet. He began to pull her for a door that he recalled being a janitor's closet. "Lemme show ya how BEST to plug a hole in the stomach, honey-bear. It's quite easy and fun! Well... for ME anyway." 


	5. Chapter 4

Author's Note: It's not as bad as you think, this next scene...  
  
Rating: For right now, PG-13  
  
Continuity: The day after... the, er, night in Raccoon City in RE2.  
  
The Day After... By: Carmen Kara Wayne  
  
Chapter Four  
  
Claire couldn't believe how fast some of the lesser damaged—lesser EATEN—zombies were. She was still faster, but she was afraid that if she slipped up once—just once—she'd end up getting doggy-piled by them...  
...and she really had no desire to be doggy-piled by anyone, let alone the undead.  
Up a flight of stairs, five of them rushing after, she went; she ended up on the second floor of the station, in another long white hall. Along the white tile was a long streak of blood that trailed from under a door by the stairs, clear down, and around the corner. It was really creepy, but Claire's Fight or Flight energy was telling her to justkeepthefuckgoing to get away from the zombies.  
Claire turned the corner, thinking she just might get away... until her left foot snapped out from under her, to the side, as if it slipped on something wet. Before she could react, her body was sailing right, towards a door that read "Janitor". She slammed hard into it and fell through, crashing into the floor. Weakly, she turned her head where she laid on hip and hands to see she slipped on blood. Among the red footprints left by her staggering fall, she saw it breaking from the trail she originally saw—two different things—and coming towards the janitor's closet.  
A grunt caught her attention. Begging for it not to be a monster, she looked and realized it couldn't have been a worse monster.  
"Oopsie, you caught me!" Demon grinned.  
A stupid look was on Claire's face as she tried to comprehend the blood, the woman, Demon's position over her... Was he—that—was she dead—that poor woman—who—she—  
When Claire and Chris would got to the movies when they were younger, she always made fun of the high-pitched screams of weak women when they were frightened by something ridiculous. Man with a chainsaw, please! Had she known then, however, that she'd see that man doing—that—to the stomach—she wouldn't have laughed back then. She shrieked and flew to her feet, staggering out of the janitor's closet. Demon continued, not giving a damn.  
A cold hand grabbed her shoulder, gripping and pulling. She could hear a struggled moan of hunger right behind her. With a choke in her throat, she whirled to face it, her body twisting from the zombie's grip. Claire grasped her gun that was in her belt and fired into its face without any hesitation whatsoever. She'd never done the point-blank thing before, and she determined she would try to never do it again as its head unexpectedly exploded everywhere—chunks flying on her, on the other zombies, on the walls, the floors...  
It's a virus—  
She prayed closing her mouth and eyes during the blast of bits and pieces would shield her from infection... she had no cuts, thankfully. No fresh, open ones, anyway. At least she hoped to God not.  
There was a groan behind her. Reeling around and aiming, she expected to see another zombie. But it was the woman Demon was on top of, moaning weakly. Claire was first dumbfounded. And then she twitched. Back in college, she once threw a 220-pound jock off of a girl he was taking advantage of after drugging her. Demon would be of absolutely no consequence; he was about 160 at the most. Even if he WAS crazy as hell.  
Claire sprung into the closet and slammed the door shut. She clasped the gun in both hands and slammed the butt of it down into the back of his head. Demon grunted out, saliva spraying out of his mouth. Unwavering in her mission, Claire snapped the safety on and crammed the gun in her waistband. She grabbed the back of his pants—noting how dirty it felt, and how loose it was because the pants were open in the front—and hefted him off of the woman.  
"Sick fuck—you DESERVE this--!" she screamed through clenched teeth.  
After she had him off, she leapt over him and swung the door open, purposely letting it slam into the side of his head. She the leapt back over and shoved/rolled him out to the zombies who were eagerly trying to get to the fresh meat and slammed the door again. She pressed against the door, arms aching and cramping from the strain. Chest heaving, she looked to the woman, who was watching her through water-filled eyes.  
"Are... oh man..." She shakily walked forward, boots clunking heavily, until gunfire started on the other side of the door drowned out her steps. Claire turned to the door when a single bullet clapped through the wood, and then dropped to her knees and pressed the hole in the woman's stomach. "What happened...? Did he do this...?"  
"Yeah... the bastard..."  
Amazingly enough, the woman began to sit up and boosted on her hands and looked at the hole, which was still oozing blood from the treatment Demon delivered to her. Claire's hands were coated in red, even, from the blood flow.  
"We can't stay here," Claire said, not paying attention to the woman's LACK of attention to her own pain. "The shots have stopped..." She got up and looked through the peephole of a bullet hole and saw everything was clear. No zombies, no Demon. "What the hell...?"  
She shook her head, she wasn't going to question it. Spinning, dropping, slinging the woman's arm around her shoulders and hefting her up, Claire was just ready to leave.  
"Are you—insane--?" the woman said, words gurgling a little. "Can't—worry about me and—survive..."  
"Hush..." Claire swung the door open, drawing the handgun again and swinging it in all directions before pulling the woman out. "Surely a doctor or someone with medical experience survived this..."  
"I—have it... the experience... station has an infirmary... down on the first basement level..."  
Claire cringed. The mutated Licker was on one of those floors. But if she got away from it twice before, maybe... just maybe she could again, despite having the woman with her.  
"Alright then," Claire said, hesitant. "But try to stay awake so you can tell me exactly where to go, cool?"  
The woman's response was so blunt and calm, Claire almost could have laughed.  
"Coolie-woolie."  
  
She just pitched me on my ass!  
The shock of that was still in Demon's mind even after he had blasted the zombies back enough to get away. They were about to follow him when something else distracted them, and they hobble-ran in another direction. He blew it off. Whatever. All that mattered was that his Angel kicked his ass AND stole his Umbrella honey.  
After I get Elana... you're MINE.  
He grinned madly and skipped a few times before breaking into a run. And then he wondered... what exactly distracted the zombies? 


	6. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Short and sweet. Yes. Short and sweet.  
  
Rating: For right now, PG-13  
  
Continuity: The day after... the, er, night in Raccoon City in RE2.  
  
The Day After... By: Carmen Kara Wayne  
  
Chapter Five  
  
A shot here, a kick there. What were those Raccoon assholes bitching about? Zombies move slow, die with one bullet to the head—good God how did they make it so hard?  
He was walking tall through the Police Station; in his fine black suit, he screamed, "Government!" Which, indeed, he was. He was part of a special unit within the government set to investigate the allegations set against the pharmaceutical organization, Umbrella Inc.  
He didn't believe it at first. Zombies? Monsters? How and why would Umbrella Inc. do that? And then he thought about it.  
Alfred Ashford was completely an inbred nutcase. He knew that from secret files the government had gathered via spies they had sent in. And why would one of the best Alpha teams in the whole Special Tactics and Rescue Squad lie with the knowledge that it could and would ruin their lives? And then, a couple of weeks ago, the Raccoon outbreak... The entire police force was overrun and literally eaten by dozens of infected citizens. The satellite photos were horrendous.  
And now this. He was definitely convinced... but not all that worried. They did, after all, move SO slow. The only things he was worried about were finding survivors, and trying not to find whatever kept making those terrible inhuman shrieks...  
Agent Antonio Troy turned a corner—and slammed directly into someone. Thinking it was a zombie, he leapt back and snapped up his double stack Glock, clicking it on the ready simultaneously with the click of another gun that was in his face—an identical one, only single stack. The owner was a wet haired girl in a black shirt and pink shorts. A knife was strapped to her left shoulder. She was at least six inches shorter than him, and maybe six years younger, and she looked so angry and confused; he didn't even think before the words fell out.  
"Damn, you're cute." 


End file.
